Although this book is about a friendship imploding, it’s also about friendships blossoming. When Cleo and Layla have a fight during their tutoring session, Cleo’s new friend, Sydney, shows up at her call. Not only does Sydney show up for her, she makes Cleo face the painful truth:

The self- and life-defining nature of grief and loss captured so well by authors such as John Green is explored here with humor, intelligence, and grace.” I always thought you deserved to know,” she says. “That people change. That love and life are fluid. That even your heroes can make choices that fall into shades of gray.” When You Were Everything unearths—in gutting, unflinching honesty—the reality of a breakdown in a friendship. Cleo and Layla have been friends since middle school. Not just friends: best friends. While not unhealthily so, they were each other's entire cosmos. They've done everything together...until they stop. Maitê wrote: "I get what you mean about not feeling seen at times when reading YA because it's so saturated with romantic relationships. Not to mention losing friendships, particularly when they use your insecur..." In LUX, the first book in afresh and relatablenew series, Ashley Woodfolkeffortlessly explores the complexities of fitting in, starting over and finding yourself, as well as your people. Young readers will most definitely want to join the FLYY Girls crew.”I loved this book for its complex and relatable portrayal of friendship. Almost everything Cleo experienced, I’ve experienced. Seeing a best friend deprioritize you for someone else yet not having the language to describe it in the moment? Yep. Hurting your friend after your friend hurt you in a way you’re unproud of, yet felt cathartic at the time? Been there. Seeing someone you care about change to the point where you no longer really know or love them, and taking a long time to accept that? So me in 2019 and even now. Through the dissolution of Cleo and Layla’s friendship, Woodfolk creates a narrative that feels so, so validating for me and I’m hoping for others who have lost a best friend or a close friend who they loved. With accessible and clear writing, she highlights how much losing a friend can hurt, especially a friend who you trusted with everything. Perhaps he doesn’t know how it feels…to break in this particular way. Or perhaps it’s different for boys? But girls cling to their friends for dear life as they wade through the rough waters of learning who they are while everything around and inside them is changing minute by minute. And aren’t we all a little bit in love with our best friends?” I enjoyed that we flip between then and now, the ‘then’ being how and the progress of Layla & Cleo’s friendship ending and the ‘now’ being the aftermath. It seems like Cleo was hit harder, but I think a few chapters from Layla’s perspective would have been interesting! Break-ups aren't always romantic. Break-ups with friends you've had for years can be equally (if not more) painful, and it definitely does not get talked about enough. Growing apart from friends when you're a teenager is extremely painful and there's no how-to guide on how you're meant to get through it. I just hope there's a sixteen year old out there that finds this book when they need it, because reading this would have made me feel a lot less lonely when I was a teenager. Cleo is smart and driven, but she also makes some poor choices, lashing out in hurtful ways when her own feelings are hurt. And while I felt that Layla was more to blame for the friendship break-up, Cleo isn’t blameless either.

Maybe Cleo doesn’t need to eradicate her old friend from her new life, but she creates new memories with new friends, as well as with old ones. It was also beautifully nostalgic for me. My BFF and I fought when we were around the same age, and I thought we would never be friends again. (As it turned out, we missed each other too much and were okay eventually, but that took years apart.) So, this book had a lot of emotions and realisations I felt on a personal level. I adore books which explore family and When You Were Everything has such phenomenal exploration. It’s not only about the secrets that Cleo begins to find out, but the ways in which When You Were Everything is a learning experience about who we are, what kind of person we want to be, and who are the people around us. We can begin to assume the people we love will never change, that the person we are with them will never change, but that’s not true. Overall, I felt like it colored my reading experience a lot because I was constantly wondering what made them act like this and whether the reactions were warranted. Which I think meant that I didn't quite feel all the emotions that Cleo was feeling as I was supposed to. Which is not to say I didn't feel for Cleo at all, I definitely did and wanted to support and hug her and yell at her and all those things while reading. I'm just saying I think I could have felt it more deeply.

When You Were Everything is hard to read at times, specifically because it’s so relatable. My own high school years are way in the past, but Cleo’s feelings as she’s isolated and tormented ring very true, in a sadly timeless sort of way. I think this books does a great job exploring all different types of loss and the building of different relationships. Ashley Woodfolk's When You Were Everything is a nuanced view of the complicated layers of teenage friendship. In gorgeous, evocative prose, Woodfolk explores the different types of love that feed, wound, and heal us.”